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High 5s: 11/14/12

November 19, 2012

All three of this week's honorees have achieved some sort of first-time stardom this fall, either individually or as a team. And both Carli Snyder and Alex Grace will be back next fall to continue building on these accomplishments. 

Carli Snyder
Macomb Dakota junior
Volleyball

(UPDATED 11/19) Snyder, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter, was an all-stater her first two seasons of high school. But she will be remembered even more for leading Macomb Dakota this fall to its first MHSAA championship in any girls sport. The Cougars defeated Temperance Bedford in three games in Saturday's Class A Final at Kellogg Arena. Snyder unofficially finished this season with 913 kills, good for seventh in the MHSAA record book since the beginning of the rally scoring era in 2004-05. Her 31 kills against Bedford were third-most for a Final during that time. Snyder already has committed to sign with the University of Florida next year. She likely will be among frontrunners for next fall's Miss Volleyball award. 

Title talk: "We wanted this thing so bad. Every girl on this team wanted it so badly. Megan (Manierski) was setting the ball perfectly. She made it very easy to get kills. ... Just talking about this moment, this gym, it makes you just want to play harder than you ever have."

Winning recipe: "We've been a competitive team in practice and in games all year, so I think that helped us at that moment (in three close Finals games) when we just didn't want to lose. We refused to lose. ... We support each other no matter what. And we hustled so hard."

Shake it up: "We have some secret handshakes with other people, but mine are very complex. I don't know how we went about that. Megan and mine is from "Parent Trap," and then Megan Downey and mine, we just made it up at team dinner. We make it a bit more complex than it needs to be, but it's fun. And it's a great thing to calm us down for a game when we've played a bad one before."

Had to be a Gator: "I like warm weather. I love the coaches. I actually called Florida for my recruiting phone call because I was kinda bored one day at home and I was like, 'I got a letter from them.' I fell in love with the coaching staff, and I told my mom that I needed to go on a visit down there. It's incredible, and when I went down there I was even more in love. Even on the phone, I knew this is where I would end up. It's just that feeling. You know when you get that feeling, and it's incredible."

Click to read more.

Alex Grace
Saginaw Swan Valley sophomore
Football

The Vikings' leading rusher is also one of the leading rushers in the state this season heading into Saturday's Division 4 Semifinal against Detroit Country Day. Grace has gained 2,091 yards plus run for 27 touchdowns, and needs only 109 yards and three more scores to make the MHSAA record book in both categories. He ran for 182 yards and three scores in the Vikings' Regional Final win over Croswell-Lexington. Grace took over as Swan Valley's running back this season after the graduation of his brother Johnathan, who rushed for 1,790 yards last season and now plays at Michigan Tech. Both brothers ran on Swan Valley's 400-meter relay that finished runner-up at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Track and Field Final in the spring. Alex is 6-0 and 185 pounds and runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds.

I'd like to run like: "Even my brother. I like to look at myself as close to him. Professionally, (Minnesota Vikings back) Adrian Peterson. He's a tough runner, fast. He's strong."

Underdogs again: "The last game against Croswell, they were the No. 2 team and we were predicted to lose. But we came back and beat them. I use that underdog feeling to work harder each day."

Best brotherly advice: "Work hard, and if there are doubters, don't let them get you down."

Science and math: (My favorite classes are) biology and economics. They just come easy to me. I enjoy it."

Click to read more. 

Flint Beecher football

The Buccaneers, coached by former Michigan State and NFL standout Courtney Hawkins, were one of the final teams selected for the playoffs, at 5-4 after a 3-4 start. But Beecher advanced to this week's Division 7 Semifinal against Detroit Loyola by eliminating reigning champion Saginaw Nouvel, 19-15, in last week's Regional championship game. Beecher, now 8-4, has made the playoffs six straight years. The first of that run came in Hawkins' second as coach and after 12 straight losing seasons. 

Click to read more. 

Previous 2012-13 honorees:

Grand Rapids Christian’s Lillian O’Grady powers through an approach during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at The Meadows at Grand Valley State.

After Finding Drive for Golf, O'Grady Grows Into GR Christian Ace, Finals Contender

By Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com

September 26, 2024

Lillian O’Grady will be the popular choice to win when she tees it up in this week’s Ottawa-Kent Conference White championship tournament at Thornapple Pointe.

West MichiganHowever, at one point in her early life, the Grand Rapids Christian junior standout was admittedly uninterested in the sport in which she would soon thereafter excel.

“I really didn’t like golf when I was younger,” O’Grady said. “I thought it was boring and just not fun. My dad made me go out and practice.”

O’Grady was 7 years old when she started playing golf with her parents and siblings. She got her first hole-in-one a year later.

While that ace is the pinnacle accomplishment for every golfer, O’Grady was less than enthusiastic.

“I remember that I didn’t want to golf that day, and it was the second hole at Cascade Hills Country Club.” O’Grady recounted. “I was hitting off the U.S. Kids Golf Tees, and I hit my 5-iron right of the hole and it just rolled down into the hole. My brothers (Max and Sawyer) are still jealous of it.”

Despite her hole-in-one, which is still the only one she’s ever had, O’Grady still wasn’t fond of golf.

But that all changed a couple years later, when at age 10, she took part in a Drive, Chip & Putt Regional event at historic Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio.

“That’s when I realized I was pretty good at this and I could go pretty far with it,” O’Grady said. “From there I was like, ‘I want to play in college and be the best I can at it’.”

O’Grady became engulfed in the sport and kept her promise to be the best she could be by practicing diligently and taking part in several tournaments throughout the summers.

Fast forward to the summer of 2022, just before her freshman year, and O’Grady’s hard work paid off. She was named the 15-and-under Junior Girls Player of the Year by the Golf Association of Michigan (GAM).

“That was super cool and amazing,” O’Grady said. “I just played well and was consistent in a lot of those tournaments. I had a really great summer.”

“Consistent” is the word that best describes O’Grady, according to Grand Rapids Christian girls golf coach Seth Davies.

O’Grady points out her score, which tied for second among individual competitors.“I think I’ve seen her maybe hit two bad shots. She would say it was a lot more, but she doesn't have a lot of those kinds of shots,” he said. “She’s a little off-line at times, but it’s part of the competitiveness that makes her so good – and most of the time she’s just consistent.

“She’ll bomb a drive down the fairway, hit something on the green and then she has a really good short game. She has a good feel as a putter, too. If you look at her game, there isn’t anything that you could identify as a major weakness.”

O’Grady wasted little time making her mark on the high school scene.

As a freshman, she placed fourth at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final as an individual. Last year, she finished in a tie for second.

“My goal is to always win,” O’Grady said. “I’m a very competitive person, so even though I was a freshman and sophomore. I wasn't going to let that stop me from trying to win. 

“My goal coming into high school was to win everything I could and be No. 1 on my team, which was building at that point.”

Over the last three years, O’Grady has been winning – a lot.

The two-time conference and Regional medalist has won all three of her 18-hole tournaments already this season and has a 35.57 scoring average in conference play. She’s had only one round over par.   

“The last couple years she has worked a ton just to improve,” Davies said. “She has a goal of playing big-time college golf somewhere, and she has done a lot of work on her own. She enters all kinds of tournaments in the offseason, and she's working out and getting stronger and longer with all of her clubs. She is just someone that puts a lot of time and effort into it.”

O’Grady is thrilled with how she’s been swinging the club this fall and is looking forward to the postseason.

“I’ve been playing really well this year, and that makes me excited for state,” she said. “I always go into the state finals to play my own game and be confident in myself because I can’t control anybody else.”

While O’Grady has qualified for Finals the last two years as an individual, she hopes to have some company this time around.

“I really hope my team can join me this year,” she said. “We are ranked third in our region right now, so that’s a big goal for our team. It would change the experience for me.”

Davies believes O’Grady has all the tools and talent to make another run at the top spot.

“That’s one of her goals this year,” he said. “This year, next year. She has as good a shot as anybody in Division 3 to be a state champ.”

Dean HolzwarthDean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties. 

PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids Christian’s Lillian O’Grady powers through an approach during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at The Meadows at Grand Valley State. (Middle) O’Grady points out her score, which tied for second among individual competitors. (Top photo by High School Sports Scene; middle photo courtesy of the O’Grady family.)